I have to admit getting a chuckle when reading Charlie Cutshaw's article in the January issue "Custom Carbine on a Cop Budget", wherein he mentions how cops are underpaid and might be on a tight budget when building a patrol carbine...

...and then he puts an ACOG, a Surefire M900, and an Ares Defense piston conversion kit on it...

He and I apparently operate on entirely different notions of what constitutes a "tight budget".